Elf (Paloron)
Elves are a race of tall humanoids native to the continent of Calendor, with a rich culture and history, their society having survived in the world of Paloron for millions of years. History Prehistory Little is known of the true nature of elves, except that the nature of their bodies is completely different to that of of most other races. As legend states: "Like the river, so was the elven kind, born in the top of the world and running down the mountains towards the sea, unrelated to the beasts." That legend is part of the creation myth of the white elves, believed to be the most ancient of elvish ethnic groups. It is said that the spirits of the sky became corporal and evolved into them across countless ages, which is used to explain their talent in gathering the lifeforce of the land. Pre-Rainion Period The written history of the race starts over a hundred million years in the past, with the white-skinned elves, self-proclaimed high elves, and also known as "snow/mountain elves", pale and with hairs in varying shades of gray (including silver) and white. Their brethren hails from the mountainous ranges of Calendor and are believed to be "the first breed of spirits to settle in the land, excelling at the healing of flesh". Large groups of the elves climbed down the mountain to never return within the first thousands of years in an event known only as "the emigration decade", the vast majority of their kind remaining in the snowy peaks. The exact date of the event is unknown even in the present. Reportedly, their first contact with another intelligent race happened 30 million years ago, with the diminutive tribes of the mountains, and that contact was far from peaceful. According to dwarven lore, after their kind was banished from the plains, they struggled their way up into the mountain ranges, invading the lands of the volatile elves. After years of battle, radicals of both sides, advocating for peaceful coexistence, united the magical abilities of elves and the weaponry of dwarves into a new form of craft, the precursor of all elven technology. With the new craft, weapons were created, and in two decades, the remaining factions of dwarves and elves were decimated and incorporated by what came to be known as the Union of Vehiron. After the conflicts were ended and the land was unified, peaceful trading allowed the dwarves to learn fungal cultivation and magic, and the mountains were peaceful for another thousand years. After a long peace, the union suffered a coup d'état known as the First Vehiron Revolution, in which royal prince Lektor Vehiron plotted the deaths of the dwarven representatives of the council, giving the elves the opportunity to take over. Their magic had been refined to power weapons of mass-destruction, and a series of genocidal preemptive strikes secured the seat of Vehiron for good. Enormous groups of dwarves climbed down the mountains, along with exiled elves, as all who opposed the new rule were exiled at once. For many rules the mountains were thoroughly explored and mined by the Vehiron clan, the remaining dwarves being treated as second-class citizens and, sometimes, slaves. The local population of dwarves went extinct within this time. The fault lies on an unknown disease that spread through the land in the past, to which dwarves were mistaken for carriers and annihilated under the rule of Kantos Vehiron. Age of Rainion The Second Vehiron Revolution happened much longer after the dwarven purge, in the rule of Ganion Vehiron, as the young heir to the throne, Rainion Vehiron, prematurely took the throne for his own in another coup d'état. Under the rule of Rainion, the elves left the mountains for good, undergoing the migration of 90% of the population. The outcome of the migration was a century of conflict in the plains of Calendor with groups of goblins and humans alike. Grand Chief Rainion allegedly led his people to victory in multiple accounts, and the multiple assaults of his army weakened the continental goblins to the point in which humans could annihilate them. A treaty with humanity allowed the elderly Rainion to lead his people through the orcish and centaur lands. In less than 200 years, the reformed Vehiron clan had arrived to the dense forests of Calendor. Post-Rainion Period In the Year 0 of the Post-Rainion period, the legendary king Rainion Vehiron met his end in the woods, aged 225, in an armed conflict with a group of brown-skinned natives, later known as wooden elves. The conflict that followed caused the modern white elves to discover the fate of the great migration of the past, as the elvish people in the forest seemed to descend directly from the main groups. Rainion's son, Al'xandr Vehiron, avenged his father father by hunting down the royals of the local elves and taking the throne of the forest, and the surviving population was jointed with the clan as free people. The Vehiron Kingdom was formed, to which the main symbol was the "plains tulip", a flower favored by the late Rainion. Later rulers of Vehiron considered other ethnic groups inferior to themselves, which led to extensive wars towards the coastal lands, where another sub-group of elves was discovered. The yellow-skinned inhabitants of the eastern coast of Calendor were given the title of golden elves and initially treated as second class people, neither respected nor wanted within the expanded dominion of what had become the Vehiron Empire. Emperor Oars Vehiron saw through the "new" ethnicity's magical abilities of causing destruction with the usage of magically receptive materials (such as wood, bronze, iron and water) and decided to integrate them into the army as the technologically advanced humankind pushed their western borders. A coup d'état was attempted by ranked golden elves within the army, but was crushed swiftly, as the emperor had expected such. The just Oars punished only those involved, even welcoming criticism from the other ethnic groups of his land. That event strengthened the bond between all of elvenkind, but caused a large loss of territory. A large portion of the forests fell to human woodcutters, but the newly united empire reacted with ferocity unseen since the very origins of the clan. The humans within the forests were hunted down and used as food source for the elven army. In many known instances, soldiers were even eaten alive during battle for demoralizing effect. After driving off the humans, the Vehiron Empire became the largest of the local nations, comprising of a good portion of the remaining forests of Calendor, as well as the eastern coast. Presently, the nation is bordered by centaur villages at west, the Badlands at north, the Sea of Broken Dreams at east and Piracy Bay at south. Category:Paloron Category:Creatures Category:Elves